Volume 20 Number 1 Article 11

Winter 1-15-1994

Artists' Comments Artists' Comments

Patrick Wynne

Paula DiSante

Sarah Beach

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Recommended Citation Recommended Citation Wynne, Patrick; DiSante, Paula; and Beach, Sarah (1994) "Artists' Comments," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 20 : No. 1 , Article 11. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol20/iss1/11

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p axse 42 issue 75 W IN T E R 1994 JWy t I}Lo r g

Front Cover:Melkor and Ungoliante in Avathar

by Patrick Wynne

I've always found Melkor an intriguing subject for illustration, and my first fanzine cover some dozen years ago was a depiction of "M elkor Descending on Arda" for the Minas Tirith Evening-Star. So when I was asked to do a cover for Mythlore, I thought it might be fun to tackle Tolkien's variant on the old boy-meets-ghoul story, the fateful meeting of M elkor and Ungoliante in her shadowy cleft in Avathar. Adding to the appeal of this particular scene was the fact that I've never seen it done before, plus it would give me the chance to do what I've come to refer to as a "critter illo," one featuring some abomination whose sole purpose in life is to flaunt the norms of anatomy.

My illustration is not based on the account of this story in The Silmarillion, but rather on a passage from Morgoth's Ring, the most recent volume in Christopher Tolkien's "History of Middle-earth" series. In the late 1950s, Tolkien's work on a revised Quenta Silmarillion included a greatly expanded version of this story, written in a far more immediate and compelling style than the version familiar from The Silmarillion (Morgoth's Ring, pp. 284-85):

§56 Now Melkor sought for her, and he put on again the form that he had worn as the tyrant of Utumno: a dark Lord, tall and terrible. In that form he remained ever after. And when Ungoliante saw him coming she was afraid, knowing his hatred for all who tried to escape from him. She shrank into her deepest lair, and tried to shroud herself in new shadow; but such darkness as in her famine she could weave was no defence against the eyes of Melkor, Lord of U tumno and Angband.

§56a 'Come forth!' he said. 'Thrice fool: to leave me first, to dwell here languishing within reach of feasts untold, and now to shun me, Giver of Gifts, thy only hope! Come forth and see! I have brought thee an earnest of greater bounty to follow.' But Ungoliante made no answer, and retreated deeper into the cloven rock. Then Melkor was angered, for he was in haste, having reckoned his times to a nicety. 'Come out!' he cried. 'I have need of thee and will not be denied. Either thou wilt serve me, or I will bury thee here and under black stone thou shalt wither into naught.' Then suddenly he held up in his hands two shining gems. They were green, and in that lightless place they re­flected the dreadful light of his eyes, as if some raven­ing beast had come hunting there. Thus the great Thief set his lure for the lesser.

§56b Slowly Ungoliante came forth; but as she drew near Melkor withheld the lure. 'Nay, nay,' he said. 'I do not bring thee these Elvish sweets in love or in pity; they are to strengthen thee, when thou hast agreed to do my bidding.' 'What is your bidding, Master?' she said, and her eyes gloated upon the gems.

Particularly charming in this version of the tale are its touches of grim humor: M elkor's growing irritation as it appears his timetable m ight be thrown off by the reluctance of his intended co-conspirator, and his solution of the problem by luring Ungoliante out of her hiding place with tasty gems held just out of reach, not unlike a harried suburbanite luring the family dog out from under the porch with a bit of hamburger. It is this moment, when Ungoliante finally creeps out hungrily seeking the gems, that is depicted in my illustration.

One of the (several) ways in which this drawing falls short of the mark is in its failure to depict the "dreadful light" of M elkor's eyes. W hile still in the pencil stage I tried indicating the light of his eyes with the same star-like effect used for the gleams of the two green gems, but this would have obscured most of M elkor's facial features and I felt it was important to clearly depict his beautiful-yet-cruel face. Next I tried straight beams of light com ing from the eyes, which left most of the facial features intact but looked too much like a cross between Superm an's heat vision and car headlights. In the end I had to settle for simply leaving Melkor's irises white.

Ungoliante was not just a giant bug but a sentient spirit in spider-form, and I tried to indicate this visually by giving her certain vaguely human characteristics, such as handlike claws, a head reminiscent of a skull (real spiders don't have a separate head; rather the head and thorax are combined into a single unit, the cephalothorax), and breasts (after all, she was a female spirit). If Ungoliante seems a bit small in my illustration, remem ber that her size was dependent on the amount of light she was able to consume: "but Ungoliante belched forth black vapours as she drank, and swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that Melkor was afraid." (S:76). At this point in the story, she is near the point of starvation and therefore of a less intimi­dating size.

The tengwar inscription at the bottom gives the English text of paragraph §56b above (save for the last sentence). I didn't attempt a Quenya version of this passage because I didn't feel I could do it justice in translation. The mode is the same as that used by Christopher Tolkien in his inscrip­tions on the title-pages of the 'History of Middle-earth' volumes.

Back Cover:"I Said I'd Carry Him... And I W ill!"

by Paula DiSante'Now for it! Now for the last gasp!' said Sam as he struggled to his feet. He bent over Frodo, rousing him gently. Frodo groaned; but with a great effort of will he staggered up; and then he fell upon his knees again.He raised his eyes with difficulty to the dark slopes of

JW yrfrLoKe issue 75 W IN T E R 1994 P A Q e 43

Mount Doom towering above him, and then pitifully he began to crawl forward on his hands.

Sam looked at him and wept in his heart, but no tears came to his dry and stinging eyes. "I said I'd carry him if it broke my back/ he muttered, 'and I will!'

...As Frodo clung upon his back, arms loosely about his neck, legs clasped firmly under his arms, Sam staggered to his feet.... He took a deep breath and started off. — The Return of the King

In m any critical studies, Frodo's journey to Mount Doom has been likened to that of Christ's road to Calvary. The weight and enorm ity of the Ring is the cross that Frodo carries on a one-way trip that can only have, as far as he knows, a horrible ending. Extending the analogy, I sup­pose one m ight call his servant "Sam w ise the Cyrenian," who helps bear the terrible w eight of the Ring along the "V ia M ordorosa" (Oh, I'm going to get slapped for that!).

The original is a color acrylic painting on masonite. Since the color palette used in the painting is actually quite limited, there was little problem in shooting a black and white nega­tive. Orthochromatic film, with which this negative was shot, will reproduce the relative brightness of a color and render it as a corresponding shade of grey. This holds true for all colors— except for red. Red reproduces as black in black and white films, which can cause real problems. However, the closest pigment to red that I used was Red Oxide, which is actually a rusty brown color. Because there is no scarlet or crimson in the scene, I was able to get a reasonably faithful reproduction on the black and white negative.

This is a very simple composition. The land forms rising on either side cup the figures within a bowl-like framing device. I w anted to show som e of the cracks and fissures, as well as the ash heaps, on the plain of Gorgoroth, so I didn't put in as much fum ing smoke as is described in the novel, which would have hidden them. There is a little smoke in the far background, but I'm not sure if it w ill be visible in the reproduction.

Page 21: Ungoliant Drinks The Lightby Sarah Beach

Then the Unlight of Ungoliant rose up even to the roots of the Trees, and Melkor sprang upon the mound; and with his black spear he smote each Tree to its core, wounded them deep, and their sap poured forth as it were their blood, and was spilled upon the ground.But Ungoliant sucked it up, and going then from Tree to Tree she set her black beak to their wounds, till they were drained; and the poison of Death that was in her went into their tissues and withered them, root, branch, and leaf; and they died. — The Silmarillion

W hat I wanted to capture was a sense of the light draining out of the Two Trees as Ungoliant drank up the sap. That is why there is still some light left in a couple of the branches of the Tree in the foreground. I also wanted to convey the Unlight of Ungoliant, to try and have the spider "radiate" darkness, as it were.

Tales Newly Told (Continuedform page 41) experience of dying, which has cut her off from the world she once shared with Tikat: his love, projected with such force at someone she no longer is, now terrifies her.

This web of struggling loves and loyalties com es at last into the shadow of the world-shaking conflict between the old wizard and his renegade pupil, Arshadin. The master has loved his pupil too much, and w ithout moral discrim­ination; and Arshadin, like many a spoiled child, has turned on his doting parent-figure in a kind of adolescent rage. Such intense love, so thoroughly betrayed, can only yield to an equally intense despair; and when a wizard with godlike powers descends into despair, the world he inhabits is endangered. Only the frail, bitterly human loves of the other characters are left to stand against the impend­ing catastrophe. All the characters have to perfect their experience of love. Events in their past make it difficult for Lai and Nyateneri to articulate their feelings for each other, which are made even more com plex by their relation to their master. The old wizard's love for Arshadin is marred by lover-indulgence, and cannot be mended unless it sub­mits to death in some form. Tikat's love is strong and unswerving and makes him capable of great feats of en­durance, but it is too full of projection, too full o f his own self. Rosseth's love is perhaps the purest and least prob­lematic, although it will have to learn balance and restraint as it matures. The fox, of course, is motivated entirely by self-interest — like many trickster-figures, he brags about his selfishness — yet even he discovers that he can be compelled by a force greater than that.

The subtlest— yet also the most poignantly moving — of the transformations, however, involves fat Karsh him­self: by the end of the story, the book's title has acquired a whole new meaning. Beagle has entrusted the narration of the tale to all of the characters in turns (except for the wizards, whose inner thoughts remain hidden to us), as though the events were being remem bered many years later. This technique is not used to provide Rashomon-like descriptions of the same events from different angles, but instead propels the story briskly and in essentially linear fashion through a succession of rapidly shifting view­points, rather like a ball being passed from hand to hand on a playingfield. W ithout resorting to exaggerated stylis­tic effects (no odd dialects, no over-mannered speech pat­terns), Beagle has given each of the narrators a distinct personal voice, vibrant with its own unique experience. This gives the entire novel an extraordinarily rich texture. The interdependence of love and death: love is stronger than death, yet death is necessary to love — by focusing on these matters Beagle seem s to have com e full circle back to the themes that concerned him in A Fine and Private Place, over thirty years ago. Yet now they are articulated with a force and urgency that the earlier novel, for all of its memorable charm, lacked. The Innkeeper’s Song is likely to become established as a classic of m odem fantasy, and will certainly repay many re-readings.